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We are about to build a new 2 story 5400sq ft house in Chicago. We have 3400 sq.ft on the first floor, where we have our master bedroom. After the kids leave (7 years?) we plan to turn off the upstairs. We plan to live there forever.

Our builder uses American Standard for his HVAC. What are thoughts on American Standard vs. other brands?

We are debating between 3 furnaces: 2 on the first floor and 1 to cover the second. Otherwise, going with a zoned system with ?? furnaces. Help!!!

I am a HVAC contractor in Massachusetts and American Standard makes top of the line Gas Condensing Furnaces[90%Plus].I think going with three seperate units is an excellent idea wear your thinking of closing off the upstairs down the road.Our electric rates are very high in
central Mass. so our use of heat pumps is a none option.

You are in a unique opportunity to save money and be more comfortable. You need to go to http://www.buildingscience.com and do the research on the Building America homes. Comfort, energy effeciency, and good IAQ depend on both the thermal envelope and proper intigration of the HVAC system. In a Building America home you rarely see three sytems. What is better is one effecient zoned sytem with all the ducts inside the thermal envelope. Do NOT depend on your contractor or HVAC person for the best way to achieve these benefits. You need to do the reaserch yourself or hire a third party who specializes in this endevor. I am not saying the general contractors or HVAC people can't do this, but it is very rare.

Why would a properly zoned single system cause headaches? It would be less expensive to install and upgrade the effeciency of a single system than three systems. The future service cost need to be taken into consideration also.

In a perfect world a zoned system is great. The problem is the people who service and install zoned systems fail to understand them, and the home owners ignore them into dis-repair. If you go with a zoned system get refrences from the installing contractor. A poor install will cause alot of headaches.

frankl, I own a HVAC bus just south of Chi. I just finished a 6000 sq ft house. We installed in floor heat in the whole house. We put furnaces[American Standard 90+] in for the A/C systems. The house was so sprawling that we used 2 boilers in it. The a/c units are not installed yet but when the weather breaks we will be installing 4 12+ outdoor units with x-valves. 1 boiler is a Munchkin and the other is a Dunkirk. There are 15 zones in the house and it works flawlessly.I would not put in 1 system zoned because if it goes down you are out until the repairs are made. If you have multiple systems you always have a backup.IMO

uktra,,these 2.5 ton systems in these large houses youve been talking about have me thinking,,,if the house has say 15 rooms probaly more are you putting like 1, 4inch supply in each room,,how do you spread that little amount of air through out a house this size,i would think most houses this size are more than 1 story,,i just dont believe it,,could you explain how you size the ductwork for a project like this